When South Africans visited Lagos tourist resorts

LAGOS has cut the image of the unfriendly human jungle where only the fittest survive. It is believed that the mega city takes no prisoners and has no sympathy for the weak.

This might not totally be false as the city suffers no fools. But beside the quest for money and survival, Lagos is also a city that has a soul that could be discovered for those who embark on the search.

It is rather funny that in most cases, those who discover this other side of Lagos are the tourists and visitors. Lagosians, as residents of the city are called, are too busy with the question of survival to look for the soul of the city.

Last week, trade delegates from the South African Tourism (SAT), including travel agents and tour operators, were in Lagos to meet with their Nigerian counterparts. The South Africans were joined by their Nigerian counterparts under the aegis of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) and National Association of Nigerian Tour Operators (NATOP).

First was the discussion segment at the Federal Palace Hotel and Casino, Victoria Island, Lagos. Leading the team from the SAT was the Evelyn Mahlaba, the SAT’s Regional Director of Africa.

She said the presence of the SAT trade delegates was aimed at improving their market.

She said:“We embarked on research on what travellers want in a particular destination. Lagos and Abuja were in the focus. This resulted in coming out with a new strategy which we are advertising to consumers.”

She said the SAT tourism had also leveraged on some high profile music events to sell the destination and use top artistes push forward their advert campaigns.

In his speech on the occasion, the Consul General of South General of South Africa in Nigeria, Ambassador Mokgethi Monaisa, said tourism was making a huge contribution to Nigerian and South African economies.

He described tourism as the sector of the economy with the greatest competitive advantage and that if the two countries continued to work together and do the right thing, tourism could do more to reduce poverty.

Monaisa talked about tourism in South Africa: “In total, tourism in South Africa contributed no less than 9.4 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product in 2014, and, more importantly, one in every ten jobs is supported by tourism.

“However, tourism growth should not only be measured by the numbers of domestic tourists or international arrivals. Tourism growth has to be environmentally and socially sustainable. And it has to be inclusive growth. To achieve this, we must bring more marginalized community into tourism mainstream.“

He said” knowing full well that Nigerians travel a lot, the SAT needs to know their needs and feed their passion”.

Monaisa said the South African and the Nigerian governments needed to put heads together to see how to streamline visa regimes to make travelling between the two countries easier. This, he said, could be done by introducing e-visas technologies that could take finger prints and live video interviews for applicants.

He said between January 2013 and June this year, South Africa issued 133,114 visas to Nigerians.

The NANTA president, Alhaji Aminu Agoha, while welcoming the visitors, advised the South African authorities to work hard to ensure that the 2014 xenophobic attack in South Africa “never occurs again”.

The NATOP President, Mr. Nkereuwem Onung, welcomed the trade workshop and called for greater collaboratrion between the two countries .

After the workshop, the South Africa delegates had the opportunity of seeing Lagos, courtesy of the NATOP. From Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, they had a tour of Mainland through the Third Mainland Bridge, Alausa, Ikeja, Avenue and Opebi Street, through Maryland, Ikorodu Road, Dolphin Estate, the Lagos suspended bridge linking Ikoyi and Lekki Phase 1 and ended up at the Nike Art Gallery.

The South Africans had a wonderful time at the Nike Arts Gallery which has the rich and eclectic art works and cultural display.

Chief Nike Ekundaye was personally present to teach the visitors some Yoruba words and dance steps. They also saw the future of Lagos at the office of Eko Atlantic City.

The tour ended at Terra Culture for a lunch.

Speaking on the tour, Onung had this to say: “We have been privileged to engage them over time and then we have had a few trips out of Lagos to South Africa.

“We have a lot to learn from South Africa Tourism and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have tourism here. But I think it is about priority of government and we also need to make our government to realise that there is also much in tourism that we can look forward to.

”Yes, we talk about oil and oil is exhaustible, but tourism is something that will last and South Africa is doing that much. They have discovered that Nigeria is their biggest market in Africa, and that is why despite their challenges as a country, they still attempt strategically to market by diminishing whatever is their weak areas and market their areas of strength.

“It is on that note that we also think that as Nigerians we should let them understand that we may not be as organised and focused as they are, but we also have a lot to show them and most of them have been coming to Nigeria. And that is why we have to take them on a city tour today.

“We have to take them to the Mainland. Most of them stay in Victoria Island and just go back. I am sure that they may have been amazed today by the tour of Lagos that we have given them. That is to show that we have a lot and that all we need to do is just get organized as a country and begin to prioritize tourism and we can make a whole lot out of it.

“That is our approach to it and our country needs to begin to look at another source of revenue. That is why we need to tell the government of the day that it is time to also appoint people who are stakeholders who understand what tourism is all about when they want to appoint people into the tourism ministry.

“Most of them have never left the Island in their years of coming to Lagos and they are very excited, and it is something that is to be cherished and we are looking at doing more with them in terms of collaboration.”

To the South Africans, they said, the tour shattered a lot of the preconceived myths about Lagos and left with an impression of a city that beneath all the noise of its toughness, still has a soul.

For many Lagosians, they may not know Lagos has the second longest bridge in Africa, that is, the Third Mainland Bridge, 11.8 kilometres.

They may not equally know that Nike Arts Gallery has one of the biggest collections of ancient and modern Nigerian contemporary art works; they also do not know that in Terra Kulture, one could have authentic Nigerian cuisines in a cerebral urbane ambience. The Makoko water village is one of its kind in the world.

These are things that many residents of Lagos hardly venture to find about. These and many more form the soul of Lagos.